Six days of Christmas: Rochester man explains mischievous snooping for presents

Friday

Dec 21, 2012 at 3:15 AMDec 21, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Editor's note: This is the third day of stories in Foster's Daily Democrat's annual Six Days of Christmas series. This year we asked readers to share with us their funniest kids' Christmas story.

By Samantha Allen

sallen@fosters.com

ROCHESTER — For Rochester resident Greg Sawyer, Christmas is a time of magic, largely because of his two young daughters.

“For young kids, the season is so magical,” he said. “There's so much to it. We do the house decorating. Getting the tree is usually a kind of fun occasion.”

But, this time of year, Sawyer said he and his wife, Tracee, tend to notice the somewhat mischievous sides of their children — Molly, 7, and Maryanne, 5 — which brings back some old memories.

“They're showing signs of being kind of snoopy and I was thinking, 'We hide our presents in the bathroom of the master bedroom, (too),” Sawyer said.

Growing up in the late 1970s in Fairfield, Calif., around the time he was 10, Sawyer said he found a very clever way of finding out exactly what his mother had planned for Christmas gifts. He would sneak into the household's master bedroom bathroom through an outside window on the first floor, and go through her secret stash.

“This is a story that gets retold quite often by my mother around Christmas time,” he said. “As a child, I had become quite adept at finding where the Christmas gifts were hidden before being wrapped and placed under the tree.”

Sawyer explained when his mom, Joanne, would leave the house, she would lock the bathroom door, but he knew exactly how to trip the lock on the outside window and secretly enter the room of wonder.

Sawyer said, on a few occasions, he sneaked in to play with his cherished wish list item, supposed to remain a surprise, a starter electric guitar.

“My technique proved useful on more than a few occasions, but like any mischievous kid, I got (confident),” he joked. “I let down my guard. I failed to focus on the details. And in any crime, the devil is in the details.”

Noting California has a very different winter season compared to New Hampshire, Sawyer said at this time of year, the ground turns to mud, and he didn't think of how that would corrupt his perfect plan.

One day, when his mother left to do a little more Christmas shopping, Sawyer sneaked outside, hopped up onto the window, unlocked it, and slipped down into the bathroom, stepping on the toilet carefully. After some time of playing with the prized guitar, he swiftly escaped back out the window, stepping onto porcelain before hoisting himself up with some assistance from the room's pristine white walls.

“Upon returning home …, my mother quickly dragged the bags to the master bedroom … while I peered out my bedroom door, trying to catch a glimpse of (her) bags, forming hypotheses about the contents,” Sawyer said. “All clear as far as I was concerned, until a blood curdling scream, 'Gregory Erwin Sawyer! You get in here right now!'”

He recalls the tale with a smile today, saying he couldn't believe he was so careless as to leave muddy footprints all over the bathroom while exiting the crime scene.

“The jig was up,” he said. “No further questions, Your Honor. Game over.”

Sawyer said this year, he is surprising his mother by reading this story in Foster's. He said, while at the time he didn't feel so merry, the family story has made an impression on all his relatives during the holiday season, especially his two children. He said two find the story “hilarious.”

Sawyer added if one of his girls pulled off such a stunt today, he may be upset for the time, but he would eventually be fairly impressed with his child's ingenuity.